Open Season For its foray into 3-D animation Sony has chosen a well-worn path: genetically fierce animals live in the lap of domesticated luxury until they’re dumped back in the wild sans survival instincts. Watch the trailer for Open Season (QuickTime)

Celebrating the original DIY Like you, dear readers, I was apparently too busy exploring south of the border to even realize it, but I just found out that May was National Masturbation Month.

Monkey Business Craig Cook remembers when friends tried to draw him out of a deep depression — by offering to get him a monkey.

Boston rat rampage Residents say that if you jam a leaf blower in the earth virtually anywhere in Allston, furry bottom feeders will be blown out of every crack and hole in sight and rain down like unsavory screeching meatballs. North Enders joke that something similar would happen if you detonate a Parmesan wheel in an alleyway off Hanover Street.

Arctic Tale All the same, this effort soundly delivers the inconvenient truth to the generation who’ll inherit it.

Hot beast Here are six possibilities, with the odds of their ascension.

Where raccoons dare Dark eyes in the darkness; quick, narrow hands working at an entrance; then the coarse slither of a heavy body through the freshly made hole.

Monkey see, monkey do So thorough and deadpan is the joke that Catherine Chalmers pulls off in her ravishing color photographs of insects crawling across flowers they resemble that when I read the wall text I was sure there had been a mistake. Slideshow: Going Ape: Confronting Animals In Contemporary Art at DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park

Something old, something new For his first major show in the US, Shintaro Miyake would create a pond filled with real water, a dam, beaver lodges, and drawings of beavers and kayakers.

The Wild The animation war between Disney and DreamWorks ( A Bugs Life versus Antz ; Monsters, Inc. versus Shrek ) continues with Disney’s response to Madagascar (though it’s said Disney had this one in works for some time).

Animal house Each of Sara Gruen’s first three novels have had animal characters who were crucial to the book, but Water for Elephants has made the biggest splash.

MICHAUD FOR GOVERNOR | November 03, 2014 However you’ve been following the race for Governor this election season, you’ve been hearing it from all sides, so we’ll make this one brief. We urge you to vote for Michael Michaud.

ADVANCED BEAUTY LESSONS | November 03, 2014 Described as a “body-positive visibility project,” Portland’s Jack Tar 207 is all about representation. Models are encouraged to bring their own clothing and personal belongings to the shoot, which owner-designer LK Weiss says brings out “a level of confidence that many people don’t feel in front of a camera.”

LITERALLY LGBT | October 31, 2014 A community-compiled list of important GBLTQ works through the years.

BACK TO REALITY | September 18, 2014 If you’re a student in southern Maine and are at all interested in arts and humanities, and have a budget of exactly $10 to spend on any one event, there’s a lot in your favor.